Poetic Licence

Transformation was always supposed to take time, unless your name is Elon Musk. Then the rules bend, the red tape vanishes, and the skies open up for business. A space cowboy from Pretoria beams Starlink over our heads, no licence, no problem. No 30% black ownership. We built policy to correct the past, but it seems all it takes is a billionaire with a broadband signal to bulldoze the future. 

So when the Minister of Communications, DA’s Solly Malatsi, insists that a new ICT directive has nothing to do with Musk’s satellite ambitions, forgive us if we struggle to believe him. The timing is too neat; not long after Johann Rupert begged Donald Trump on “our behalf” to bring Starlink into every police station in South Africa. And all the while, black-owned tech startups jump through flaming hoops of regulation, BEE compliance, and funding hurdles. They’re told to follow the law. Musk? He just follows the stars. 

There’s a name for what’s happening. It’s not innovation. It’s not an investment. It’s a soft coup. Not with tanks or boots, but with Wi-Fi signals, WhatsApps, and policy drafted in the language of inevitability.  A meeting between Cyril Ramaphosa and Elon Musk in September 2024, sealed with a handshake in New York, a meeting in the Oval Office, and suddenly the South African sky is a private estate. And don’t be fooled by the spin, when billionaires are allowed to break the law long enough, the law eventually breaks for them. 

This isn’t just happening, it’s happening in broad daylight. No cloak-and-dagger, no backroom deals, just raw power flaunting itself in the open. The minister denies, Icasa investigates, and the billionaires keep beaming. MPs across party lines have slammed Malatsi’s draft ICT policy, warning that it could let Starlink bypass the 30% ownership rule meant to empower the historically excluded.  

The ink on the Gazette is barely dry, and already the transformation charter is being treated like a doormat, trampled to make way for foreign monopolies. This isn’t just a policy shift. It’s a political tell: when it’s time to choose between black empowerment and billionaire access, the minister reached for the stars, and threw the rest of us under the rocket. 

This is no longer about bandwidth or satellites. It’s about power, who holds it, who bends it, and who gets written out of the picture. For all the talk about innovation and progress, the bottom line is that billionaires are being prioritised over local empowerment. What’s happening with Starlink is not oversight, it’s intentional. And if Parliament doesn’t stop it, this won’t be the exception. It’ll become the playbook. 

For more political analysis and commentary in vernacular, join the conversation on Rabbie’s YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/RabbieWrote?sub_confirmation=1